Soledad García Muñoz is a Spanish lawyer who in 2017 was elected as first Special Rapporteur on economic, social, culture, and environmental Rights serving on the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese language, Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des ...

Life

Muñoz was born in

Arenas de San Pedro Arenas de San Pedro is a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2006 census ( INE), the municipality has a population of 6,682 inhabitants. Its seal Seal may refer to any of the following: ...

Castile and León Castile and León is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km2. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a pop ...

, Spain, in 1969. She graduated in law from the CEU Luis Vives of the

University of Alcalá de Henares A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

in 1992 and graduated in advanced studies in human rights from the

Charles III University of Madrid University Charles III of Madrid () (UC3M) is a public university in the Community of Madrid, Spain. Established in 1989, UC3M is an institution with a distinctly international profile. It offers a broad range of master's and bachelor's degree p ...

in 2004. She began her career as a lawyer in Madrid from 1993 to 1998. In 1998 she moved to Argentina to become the president of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

in Argentina. She became vice-chair of Amnesty International's international executive committee and chair of its Working Group on Gender and Diversity. She was a professor in the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the

University of La Plata The National University of La Plata (, UNLP) is a national public research university located in the city of La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It has over 90,000 regular students, 10,000 teaching staff, 17 departments and 10 ...

and their Gender and Women's Human Rights Coordinator. In 2004, she launched Amnesty International's campaign, "It's in our hands, no more violence against women". She was coordinator of the CEDAW-Argentina Project of the

Inter-American Institute of Human Rights The Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR) is an autonomous international academic institution dedicated to the teaching, research and promotion of human rights. It was founded in 1980 by virtue of an agreement signed by the Inter-America ...

(IIDH), member of the Group of Experts on Progress Indicators of Women's Human Rights, of the

Inter-American Commission of Women The Inter-American Commission of Women (, , ), abbreviated CIM, is an organization that falls within the Organization of American States. It was established in 1928 by the Sixth Pan-American Conference and is composed of one female representative ...

(CIM). From 2009 to 2017, she was in charge of the Regional Office for South America of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIDH) based in Montevideo. (On the left) The IACHR in Bolivia in April 2023 In 2017 she was elected to be the Special Rapporteur on economic, social, culture, and environmental Rights serving on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She is not there to represent Argentina but she is elected by the member states to serve on their behalf. She leads the autonomous Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) as part of the IACHR. In 2022 the IACHR recognised that climate change was a threat to human rights in South America. IACHR and REDESCA published resolution No. 3/21 "Climate Emergency: Scope of Inter-American human rights obligations" in Washington. Soledad Garcia Munoz and IACHR president Julissa Mantilla Falcón were pleased with this human rights approach to climate change.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Munoz, Soledad Garcia 1969 births Living people Spanish jurists